


Tim's Writing Assignment

by WhattheCatDraggedIn



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Red Robin (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Canon - Comics & Cartoon Combination, Creative Writing Assignment, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhattheCatDraggedIn/pseuds/WhattheCatDraggedIn
Summary: Tim has to do a Creative Writing assignment. The boy has many talents, but coming up with fictional stories is not one of them. Dick and Jason tell him to just write a mission report, and he comes up with something better.Jason's life story. And of course, who better to peer review than the man himself?A mix of various comic and movie story lines for Red Hood's origin.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 9
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Includes a mix of story lines, Jason's commentary, and a youtube link to Zefrank1's True Facts About the Fruit Bat.

Tim groaned and let his head fall onto the table with a _whud_ , the sound of skull meeting decades old mahogany. He was doing his homework in the family room, sitting on the plush carpet with his back nestled against the couch and the low top table pulled over his legs. He had chosen this spot to see if Jason or Dick’s antics could give him inspiration, but so far, Jason was reading, and honestly hadn’t budged for hours, and Dick was hanging upside down off the couch, and kept frowning when his screen flipped to adjust to his orientation. He had wiggled into probably forty nine positions in the last hour, but none of them brought the spark of inspiration that Tim had hoped for.  
“What’s the matter, Timberton?” Jason asked, not looking up from his book.  
“Creative writing assignment. I can do many things, write stories is not one of those things,”  
“Just spice up a mission report,” Dick said, stretching and readjusting into the fiftieth position of the evening.  
“What? There’s no way I can do that,”  
“It’s what I always did,”  
“Bruce let you?” Tim asked, incredulous.  
“Bruce told me to,” Dick returned  
“No way.’ Tim refused to believe Dick  
“Yeah, I did it too. I made it third person though, and from the point of view of the villain,” Jason added, still not looking up. His eyes went comically wide as they glided across the page, then he frowned and flipped the page, hmming.  
“I mean, I guess,”  
“Well, it’s not like everything you do goes on the news or anything, Timberland. Just write something that happened undercover. Or to be extra safe you could use one of our old missions or something. You’re definitely too young to be Robin from our era”  
Jason snorted and turned the page again.  
“What if I wrote about Jason coming back to life and wandering the Earth as a zombie before being resurrected by the pit? Hell, I could add to the rumor Red Hood is bloodthirsty zombie Robin” He tested, seeing if Jason was even listening.  
“That’s the spirit, Tim Timmeroo,” Jason mumbled.  
“Honestly, that might make a good one, without being direct mission reports.” Dick said, thoughtfully  
“I’d read your artistic rendition. Probably get a good laugh,” Jason hummed, then he laughed out loud at whatever was happening in his book.  
“Oh, good, you can be my peer review, Jase” Tim said, and got down to typing.  
*********  
Tim Drake- Wayne  
6th Period  
English 4  
Mr. Reddings  
Draft 1

Peter Rodd; Zombieman **[Should make it Rason Rodd]**  
*Note; Peer reviewed by my adopted brother. **[Definitely not Jason Todd :D]** Review correction in Brackets

It was an eerily quiet night, the moon was still low in the sky, and the **[cemetary]** was quiet. Peter Rodd awoke with a start, to darkness. The black around him was absolute, and wrapped around him, like a blanket. He tried to move, tried to sit up, only to realize he was trapped in a tiny, lined box. **[Set the scene, very nice]** Silken pillow **[benath]** his head, crisp black suit cover **[ed Should be ‘ing’]** his body. Memories came back in a rush, an explosion, smoke filling his lungs, then nothing. Panic crept into him, filling him to the very tips of his fingers, which fumbled for something, anything that could break out of the coffin. **[A bit run-on. Also I was really just mad that neither B nor Alfred would think to bury me with a knife]** His fingers found his belt buckle, and in quick work, he ripped it off. He knew that he wouldn’t have long before air ran out, so he placed his shirt over his face, and began slamming the buckle into the top of the wooden box that held him captive. **[I read it in a book once. It’s now part of bat-curriculum]** Finally he felt dirt raining down on his face, and he slammed it one last time with all his strength. **[For added dramatics, you could point out that the air had run out by this point]** He dug upwards as fast and hard as he could, feeling suffocated with the dirt, and finally, his hand reached the surface **[Shot through to the surface, clawing for purchase]**. Peter **[cralwed]** out, victorious, nails bleeding or just plain gone, and his mind gone with them. **[This is repetitive, try a synonym]** Mindlessly, he wandered into the night, stalking something, anything to keep him sustained. Most of his brain never to return. **[Hey!]**  
There was something special about Peter. **[His name was secretly Rason]** He had been the **[adopted]** son of Batman, and at night he had flown over Gotham city to fight crime alongside the Dark Knight. In his yellow red and green costume, **[Traffic light of destiny. Pants-free parrot.]** he had toppled empires of crime, taking on the Scarecrow, **[maybe make this more vague, or add other villains. Most not-villain-or-goon people didn’t know the difference between me and Dick]** and finally falling, succumbing to the Joker. **[You’re not gonna add I was blown to bits? Sad]** These reflexes kept him alive in the city as he worked his way along the streets he had grown up protecting. He was a mindless beast, killing anyone who tried to stop him, living life as a shell with deadly instincts. At one point in the confusing midst of the time he was dead, Peter was mugged in an alley, his nice clothing drew attention to him, never a good thing in a place as ruthless and brutal as crime alley. **[You sound like a rich kid. Oh wait, you are:P]** It so happened that the scene of this mugging was privy to a dark figure on the roof. **[Perv pants]** She watched as the men went after Peter, and he fought them off. H **[I]** s ragged, near rotten form seemed spring loaded. **[Who said I was rotting? Jk, I was totally rotting]** He punched the first man, and used a low hanging fire escape to swing and kick down the second. Finally, he rounded on the third, and took him out, cleanly. On[e] kick and a punch to the throat took the crook out. _Forever_. **[Lights, camera, Action! Loving the drama]**  
The figure recognized Peter, his fighting style and skills were that of the Batman, _no_. Robin. **[AKA, better in every way?]** She descended, intent on asking questions, questions all would have wanted answered, for Robin had been dead for nearing a year and a half. He didn’t seem to hear her land, as he stumbled over the men he had laid out. **[and. Or have it as ‘He didn’t seem to hear her land… or notice her… name.’]** He didn’t **[seem to I’d honestly just take this out]** notice her as she called his name.  
“Robin?” S **[H]** e asked, touching his shoulder. He grabbed her wrist, the strength of the grip frightening compared to his small body. **[I punched her square in the face]** He was the size of an average nine year old, **[True, I was even tinier than Damian]** however she knew the true age of the child. Robin had been twelve when he had died, the number emblazoned in her mind. She had, at one point loved Batman, **[What the hell is your punctuation???]** had visited him when his child, Robin died. He had pushed her away. **[They fought, and B went home and cried]** She stood for all he was against, as an assassin known as Talia Ghoul. **[Creative]** She was the daughter of Ray Ghoul, **[Creative x2]** an immortal assassin and head of the League of Darkness, a sinister organization that thrived in death.  
Talia brought Peter to her father, under the pretense of training him to be used as a weapon against Batman. **[No definitive article this time?]** She proposed using him as an assassin to break his father, but in secret she helped him as much as she could, hoping to find the tie that would reunite her with her beloved, Dick Rodd, the real man behind the Batman. **[Tim I could fucking cry I love you so much right now. You could stand to use a semicolon or two, though]** She worked with him for over a year, trying to get him to remember, but nothing came back to Peter. **[Legit, she was the only one who could come near me without me ripping their heads off]** Despite Talia’s best efforts, Ray’s patience began to wear thin, and he demanded that he either see significant progress from Peter, or he would have the boy killed to stop wasting Talia’s time. Talia was heartbroken. She had begun to have a soft spot for Peter, and was coming to realize she loved him as her own son. **[Little more PG than I remember]** She had one final last ditch resort to bring Peter’s mind **[and body. I was still rotting]** back.  
That night, Ray Ghoul was to bathe in the rejuvenating waters of the Lazarus pit. **[Ok, this is straight plagiarism. I like it.]** Talia snuck Peter down to where the pit was kept, and just as her father was to step in, she pushed Peter into the water.  
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!” Ray roared as Peter drowned in the pit water, **[This sounds kind of hilarious and dramatic, but I legit couldn’t swim and straight up just drowned lol]** but before Talia could answer, Peter rose from the water, spluttering the red liquid from his lungs. **[Dark, mysterious, sexy]** He went insane from the strain of being brought back so violently, his memories consisted of dying, digging himself out of his grave, hazy bits and bobs **[Hi, Alfred]** of his year with Talia and Ray, and then drowning in red. **[TBH I have no fucking clue what I was thinking besides AARGGHH EAT FLESH]** He **[K]** illed three men in his rampage, attempting to get as far away from Talia, her father, and the dark agents surrounding him. He dove off a hundred foot cliff, and Talia’s heart ached, knowing she would likely never see him again. Ray had sputtered. **[Not sure sputtered is the best option here, it makes him sound… anxious? Or embarrassed?]**  
“Good riddance,” Deciding that **[the Peter’s end act]** in itself was punishment enough for Talia.  
Peter found her again, days later. **[Fix the formatting here]**  
“Talia, my mind has recovered,” **[Bland. It was more like Talia...wtf???]** He told her “And I have one goal,”  
“What is it, Peter?” She asked, desperate for him to recognize her.  
“I need to kill my **[Adopted]** Father. I need to avenge my death and kill the Batman,” **[I have no idea why my dumbass thought this was the answer]**  
And so the training began. Talia hired assassins **[,Perfect place for a semicolon]** teachers whose skills Peter had not yet learned, for Batman never taught the art of killing. **[And then we boinked. Also weird looking back. I screwed Dami’s mom. Ew.]** Peter killed each teacher as he completed their curriculum, realizing the corruptness of each. **[They deserved it. Human Trafficking Ring, freaky shit like that]** He came to learn of a new Robin and was enraged by the replacement of his old post, wishing his father had learned the folly of his ways with his death, as well as the fact the Joker still walked the earth. H[I]s focus began to change, as he realized it wasn’t enough to kill his father Dick. **[Dunno why but I just imagined Dick with a ridiculous mustache. Can’t stop laughing about it]** He needed to end the cycle of death, and kill the Joker. **[Make “Dick'' kill the Joker]**  
It had been five years since Jason **[Don’t you mean Peter? Lol]** had set a costumed foot on the slippery rooftops lining Gotham. He had a plan; **[Yes! Semicolon!]** begin an aggressive front against the crime in Gotham, and become a drug lord of his own in order to fix the corruption. To take crime out, he would become crime. He would lead the underground, to make it right. He knew he could never destroy the crime entirely, something Batman never understood. **[True Facts about the Fruit Bat https://youtu.be/j_SjhcdF_J4 ]** He stepped into Gotham as the Red Hood, a pseudonym he took from his own murderer. As he stood in Gotham, claiming it as once again his home, he became the new Red Hood. He would use this persona to become crime, use it to kill the joker, and use it to avenge his death. Peter began his journey to being the top crime lord in Gotham by taking over the drug trade. **[You just gonna leave out the part where I nearly fucking killed you? I figured you’d use this to rub it in my face. Sorry for that, I owe you more ice cream or smth]**  
Red Hood spent two hours hunting each and every major drug lord’s assistants, and he used them to call a meeting. The major drug trade of Gotham gathered, questioning who called them, who had arranged a meeting of such power. **[Eh, I suppose. Most of these fucks are dumb as hell]** Their argument was interrupted by the dark growling voice of a man. **[As opposed to what, a badger? Cause I’m not a kid anymore?]**  
“I arranged the meeting. Now sit down,”  
“You’re suicidal!” One of the lords called, and Peter sprayed bullets at the roof. Hot metal came down like acid rain around the lords, who cowered.  
“Says the man yelling at the guy with the AK-47,” Peter threw a thick, black duffel bag. It landed on the table the Drug lords stood around with a sickening squelch. “Open it, I got it just for you,”  
Cautiously, one man opened the zipper, and the sight caused two others to wretch, and one to lose his dinner. Inside of the bag were the heads of all eight assistants.  
“That took me two hours, you wanna see what I can do with a whole evening?” Hood growled, a grin clear in his voice.  
“What do you want?” Another of the drug lords asked, trembling.  
“You now work for me. You’ll kick up 40 percent to me, and no dealing to kids. **[Amen]** better than the scraps you’re being left now,”  
“What if we don’t agree?”  
“I wasn’t asking,” Hood snarled, and in another spray of bullets, this one aimed at the lords, he was gone. **[This is just creepy accurate, considering you weren’t there. Security footage?]**  
Hood went on to attract the attention of Batman, and after an epic fight, he disappeared. **[Vague. Was this assignment three pages double spaced? Oh, yeah. Double space it. MLA Tim, you know this,]** He came back, however. Back to Gotham, his home. Back to fighting crime, killing any who stood in his way. No one knows what happened in between then and now, but the Red Hood still stalks these streets, a zombie of a dead Robin. Some say he is still insane from the **[l]** azarus pit, some say he is as bloodthirsty as ever. **[Mwahahahahahaha]** One thing is known, he watches over the Bowery, and Crime Alley, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. Crime Lords fear him, a flash of Red enough to start thei **[r]** hearts pounding in their chests **[And piss puddling in their shoes]** The onl **[t]** thing for sure is, Peter is alive once more. **[And he comes after any teacher that would dare give this anything below an A+]**

********  
Tim was on patrol when Jason returned the corrections he’d made. Already Printed and ready for Tim to turn in.  
“You know I can’t use most of these corrections, right?”  
Jason grinned and handed him a different copy, smart ass remarks mostly censored (Enough to not give away any identities). It had some even more in depth suggestions.  
“It’s a work of art, Timby, you dumbass” Jason said, ruffling Tim’s hair. He saluted Tim, and turned and leapt off the roof, falling into the pitch blackness.  
“Glad you enjoyed it!” Tim called after his brother, and chuckled at the assignment before pocketing it, silently deciding to ask Jason to peer review from then on, instead of Dick, who tended to not only miss half of what needed correcting, but was nowhere near as funny or helpful as Jason’s marks. He had even signed the bottom in red pen to prove it wasn’t just Tim who had done it, the signature carefully done too messy to legibly read the name. When Tim was later doing the final copy, he found himself using almost every single one of Jason’s suggestions, and the teacher had just written on the bottom “Nothing to add to peer review” with a smiley face, which Tim had sent a picture of to Jason, receiving a wink emoji in return.  
A few days later, the teacher passed back the graded packet of all bits and pieces of the final assignment.  
Tim was stunned  
A+, with a note.  
“Fantastic writing, Tim! I’ve received quite a few imaginative pieces about Batman and Co. but this was overall the most creative. Interesting take on the Red Hood. Tell your brother the Fruit Bat video made me laugh”  
She had drawn a thumbs up, and Tim sent the whole thing to Dick and Jason.  
Jason was the best, most dumbass brother EVER.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter is the completed Creative writing assignment, as this can be confusing to read with Jason's "input"
> 
> Also formatting this bitch took forever :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final draft of Tim's essay

Tim Drake- Wayne  
6th Period  
English 4  
Mr. Reddings  
Draft 1

Peter Rodd; Zombieman

It was an eerily quiet night, the moon was still low in the sky, and the cemetary was quiet. Peter Rodd awoke with a start, to darkness. The black around him was absolute, and wrapped around him, like a blanket. He tried to move, tried to sit up, only to realize he was trapped in a tiny, lined box. There was a silken pillow beneath his head, and he was dressed in a stiff black suit. Memories came back in a rush, an explosion, burning smoke filling his lungs, then nothing. Panic crept into him, filling him to the very tips of his fingers, which fumbled for something that could break him out of the coffin. His fingers found his belt buckle, and in quick work, he ripped it off. He knew that he wouldn’t have long before air ran out, so he placed his shirt over his face, and began slamming the buckle into the top of the wooden box that held him captive. His hands were sweating, and the buckle slipped as he hammered away. Finally he felt dirt raining down on his face, and he slammed it one last time with all his strength. A breath of air came in, and Peter realized that the air supply in the coffin had dwindled. He dug upwards as fast and hard as he could, feeling suffocated with the dirt, and finally, his hand shot through to the surface, clawing for purchase. Peter crawled out, victorious. Some of his nails were bleeding and others were just plain gone, and his mind went with them. He was a zombie as he wandered into the night, stalking something, anything to keep him sustained. At some point in crawling to the surface, his brain had died again.  
There was something special about Peter. He had been the son of Batman, and at night he had flown over Gotham city to fight crime alongside the Dark Knight. In his yellow red and green costume, he had toppled empires of crime, taking on every villain that had crossed his path. But the life of a vigilante is a dangerous one, and he lost his life to the antics of the Joker. By the time Batman had reached Robin, the life had left the Boy Wonder, taken from him in an earth shattering explosion. The reflexes instilled in him by his harsh training regimen as Robin kept him alive in the city as he worked his way along the streets he had grown up protecting. He was a mindless beast, killing anyone who tried to stop him, living life as a mere shell with deadly instincts. At one point in the confusing midst of the time he was dead, Peter was mugged in an alley, his nice clothing drew attention to him, never a good thing in a place as ruthless and brutal as crime alley. It so happened that the scene of this mugging was privy to a dark figure on the roof. She watched as the men went after Peter, and he fought them off. His ragged, rotting form seemed spring loaded. He punched the first man, and used a low hanging fire escape to swing around and kick down the second. Finally, he rounded on the third, and took him out, a strong kick, followed by a vicious punch to the throat ended the man’s life of crime. Forever.  
The figure on the roof recognized Peter, his fighting style and skills were that of the Batman, _no,_ **Robin.** She descended, intent on asking him the questions that would have been on anyone’s mind, for Robin had been dead for a year and a half. He didn’t seem to hear her land, or notice her calling his name as he stumbled across the bodies of the men he had taken down.  
“Robin?” She asked, touching his shoulder. He grabbed her wrist, the strength of the grip frightening compared to his small body, then twisted, launching his fist into her face. She took the punch, but then took him down, feeling his body fight her hold. He was the size of an average nine year old, however she knew the true age of the child. Robin had been twelve when he had died, the number emblazoned in her mind. She had, at one point, loved Batman. She came to his side when Robin had died; ever the solitary hero he had pushed her away. She stood for all he was against, as an assassin known as Talia Ghoul. She was the daughter of Ray Ghoul, an immortal assassin and head of the League of Darkness, a sinister organization that thrived in death.  
Talia brought Peter to her father under the pretense of training him to be used as a weapon against Batman. She proposed using him as an assassin to break his father, but in secret she cared for him as much as she could. She hoped to find the tie that would reunite her with her beloved Dick Rodd, the real man behind the Batman. She worked with Peter for over a year, trying to get him to remember, but no cognisance returned. Despite Talia’s best efforts, Ray’s patience began to wear thin, and he demanded that he either see significant progress from Peter or he would have the boy killed to stop wasting Talia’s time. Talia was heartbroken. She had begun to have a soft spot for Peter, and was coming to realize she loved him as her own son. She had one final last ditch resort to bring Peter’s mind and rotting body back.  
That night, Ray Ghoul was to bathe in the rejuvenating waters of the Lazarus pit. It was the secret to his immortality, but Talia had different plans. Talia snuck Peter down to where the pit was kept, and just as her father was to step in, she pushed Peter into the water.  
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!” Ray roared as Peter drowned in the pit water. Before Talia could answer, Peter rose from the water, spluttering the red liquid from his lungs. His mind went through a violent transformation. His returning memories consisted of dying, digging himself out of his grave, hazy bits and bobs of his year with Talia and Ray, and then drowning in red; it was too much for his mortal mind to bear. He killed three men in his rampage as he made a desperate bid for freedom from Talia, Ray, and the League of Darkness. He dove off of a hundred foot cliff, and Talia’s heart ached, knowing she would likely never see him again.  
Ray snarled “Good riddance,” deciding that Peter’s second demise in itself was punishment enough for Talia.  
Peter found her again, days later.  
“Talia… I remember now. Everything,” He told her “And I have one goal,”  
“What is it, Peter?” She asked, desperate for him to recognize her work, and hoping against all hope to return to her beloved’s side.  
“I need to kill my father. I need to avenge my death and kill the Batman,”  
And so the training began. Talia hired assassins; teachers whose skills Peter had not yet learned, for Batman never taught the art of killing. He learned new skills, from the most effective way to bleed an enemy out to the proper, deadly use of explosives. Peter killed each teacher as he completed their curriculum, realizing that each of them were committing atrocities he could not leave unchecked. He came to learn of a new Robin and was enraged by the replacement of his old post, wishing his father had learned the folly of his ways with his death, as well as the fact that the Joker was still alive. His focus began to change, as he realized it wasn’t enough to kill his father Dick. He needed to end the cycle of death, and his new plan was to force Batman to kill the Joker.  
It had been five years since Peter had set a costumed foot on the slippery rooftops lining Gotham. He had a plan; begin an aggressive front against the crime in Gotham, and become a drug lord of his own in order to fix the corruption. To take crime out, he would become crime. He would lead the underground, to make it right. He knew he could never destroy the crime entirely, something Batman never understood. He stepped into Gotham as the Red Hood, a pseudonym he took from his own murderer. As he stood in Gotham, claiming it as once again his home, he became the new Red Hood. He would use this persona to become crime, use it to kill the joker, and use it to avenge his death. Peter began his journey to being the top crime lord in Gotham by taking over the drug trade.  
Red Hood spent two hours hunting each and every major drug lord’s assistants, and he used them to call a meeting. The major drug trade of Gotham gathered, questioning who called them, who had arranged a meeting of such power. Their argument was interrupted by the dark, modulated, growling voice of a young man.  
“I arranged the meeting. Now sit down,”  
“You’re suicidal!” One of the lords called, and Peter sprayed bullets at the roof. Hot metal came down like acid rain around the lords, who cowered.  
“Says the man yelling at the guy with the AK-47,” Peter threw a thick, black duffel bag. It landed on the table the drug lords stood around with a sickening squelch.  
“Open it, I got it just for you,”  
Cautiously, one of the criminals opened the zipper, and the sight inside caused two others to wretch, and one to lose his dinner. Contained in the bag were the heads of all eight assistants Hood had hunted earlier in the evening.  
“That took me two hours, you wanna see what I can do with a whole evening?” Hood growled, a grin clear in his voice.  
“What do you want?” Another of the drug lords asked, trembling.  
“You now work for me. You’ll kick up 40 percent to me, and _no_ dealing to kids. It’s a hell of a lot better than the scraps you’re being left now,”  
“What if we don’t agree?”  
“I wasn’t asking,” Hood snarled, and in another spray of bullets, this one aimed towards the drug lords, he was gone.  
Hood went on to attract the attention of Batman. The sounds of their epic fight rang through the dark streets of Gotham, however neither came out victorious. In the haze of the fighting, they were caught in an explosion, once again orchestrated by the Joker. When the dust cleared, Red Hood had disappeared into the night. He came back, however. Back to Gotham, his home. Back to fighting crime, but unlike Batman he killed any who stood in his way. No one knows what happened in between then and now, but the Red Hood still stalks these streets, a zombie of a dead Robin. Some say he is still insane from the Lazarus pit, his reanimation creating a haunting figure. A ghostly illusion of what a human should be. He now watches over the Bowery, and Crime Alley, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. Crime Lords fear him, a flash of Red enough to start their hearts pounding in their chests. One thing is known; Peter is alive once more, and as bloodthirsty as ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
